The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise Part 4

"Tickets!" exclaimed Jack. "Tickets?"

"Yes. They seemed all right-I mean respectful and all that. They said they had unexpectedly run out of funds and wanted to know if I wouldn't buy some railroad tickets they had to New York. I said I hadn't any use for them, and couldn't get off to go to New York anyhow, as this was our busy season."

"So you didn't buy them?" asked Cora. "But I thought you said--"

"I didn't buy the railroad tickets," said the young lady manager. "But I did purchase two tickets for the opera performance that is to be given at Chelton on Friday night. I'd been wanting to go, and I was going to telephone for tickets when these young men said they had two good ones they'd let me have for less than the regular price."

"And you took them?" asked Walter.

"Yes. It seemed a bargain, and I am desirous to see the play."

"Do you mind letting me see the tickets?" asked Jack.

"Certainly you may see them," was the answer, and from her pocketbook, which she had left in charge of the cashier, the manager took out two slips of blue pasteboard.

"Hum! They seem regular all right," remarked Jack. "Date and seat numbers all proper. I know where those seats are, too, right in the middle of the first row balcony. I always sit there myself when I go."

"They said they were good seats," declared the girl, "and I saved a dollar. They wanted the money they said, for they had spent their last for some ice cream. They seemed to be all right."

"Maybe they were," agreed Jack. "Of course it's perfectly proper for persons who can't use railroad or theatre tickets they have purchased, to sell them again. And these tickets seem to be the same as those you would get at the box office. And there's no crime in being without cash.

But it is a crime to take an automobile."

"The only question is whether the same two fellows are involved,"

suggested Walter.

"That's it," agreed Jack. "I wish you girls had had a better look at those who went off in the machine."

"It all happened so suddenly," Belle explained.

"Yes, such things generally do," remarked Cora. "Well, there's nothing else to do, is there?"

"I guess not," said Jack, who had telephoned in the additional description of the young men who had sold the tickets, adding the information that there was only a suspicion that they were the same two who were responsible for the taking of the car.

"If they had only kept the theatre tickets, instead of selling them,"

said Walter, "we'd have a good chance of arresting them."

"How?" Belle demanded.

"By watching those two seats. As soon as the fellows came in to take their places we could have an officer arrest them."

"Please don't try it on me," begged the young lady who had purchased the coupons. "I don't want a scene," and she regarded Walter smilingly.

"Of course not," agreed Cora. "Oh, dear! My nice car, that I was counting on taking to Camp Surprise with me."

"We'll get it back before then!" declared Jack.

"Oh! but we're going earlier than we planned originally," said Belle.

"And she wants you boys to come, too!" cried Bess.

"No more than you do!" snapped Belle, her fair face flushing.

"What's the idea?" asked Walter.

"It's getting so unbearably warm," said Cora, and then she explained that they might go earlier than originally planned to the bungalow camp in the mountains.

"Well, we might manage it," Jack said. "We'll talk it over, Wally. Have to see Paul, though I guess he'd fit in anywhere Bess went."

"Oh! is that so?" cried the plump girl, blushing in her turn.

The tea room people promised to be on the lookout for the strange young men, and to notify Jack or the police if they came around again.

"But if they were the ones who took the car they won't come back,"

Walter declared.

By crowding, all the young people managed to get in Jack's car. On the way back to Chelton a sharp lookout was kept for the missing machine, but no trace of it was seen, and Cora was much depressed when she reached home.

"Never mind," whispered Jack, "you may use mine, Sis, until yours shows up. Don't worry, we'll get it yet."

"I hope so," murmured Cora.

CHAPTER IV-A CURIOUS STORY

Such measures as one might expect to have taken in a place like Chelton and the surrounding towns were taken by the authorities in an endeavor to recover Cora's stolen automobile. For stolen it certainly was, and not taken in a joke. That fact was patent when several days pa.s.sed and no trace of it was found and no word received as to where it might have been taken or abandoned by the two strange young men.

"They might merely have taken it to get some place, seeing that they had no money," observed Belle, when the three girls were talking the matter over one day at Cora's house.

"They had railroad tickets, though," said Belle.

"Yes, but to New York, and perhaps they didn't want to go there."

"I should think New York would be just the place where they would want to go if they had no money," came from Cora. "There are so many chances to make money there."

"Perhaps they didn't dare go," suggested Belle.

"What do you mean?" came in a duet from the others.

"They might have done something-perhaps have taken another auto-and they knew the police would be after them," explained Belle.

"Quite dramatic," observed Cora. "But whoever they are or whatever their motive, I wish they'd send back my car. I want it."

"I don't blame you a bit," came from Bess. "Come on, we'll go out on another searching tour."

"All right," agreed Cora, and they were soon on the road again in the car of the Robinson twins. The girls had not left it all to the authorities to find the missing automobile. They had made diligent inquiries themselves on all roads leading out of Chelton and in the vicinity of the tea room. Nor had the boys been idle. Paul Hastings arrived in town on business connected with the automobile concern by which he was employed, and he, Jack and Walter, made it their business to scurry around in Jack's car, looking for clews.